Michelle Obama on Beyonce, White House "secret stash"

First lady Michelle Obama probably expected an emotional and inspiring meet-and-greet during her visit to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis on Wednesday.

What she might not have expected was an interrogation on the day's most pressing issues. But that's exactly what she got as patients at the hospital pelted her with hard-hitting questions.

"Does the White House have a secret stash?" one asked.

"A secret stash of what? I'm going to have you clarify that," she replied as the kids in the audience laughed. "If I told you then it wouldn't be a secret. That's highly classified information."

Another asked her whether she brought family dogs Bo and Sunny with her to Memphis.

"No, they didn't come with me today," she said. "They're at home with Malia and Sasha. But they ride on the plane when we go on vacation. We take them on vacations with us, and they ride on the planes. And they're good on the planes, actually. They sit in their little chairs, wait for takeoff, and then they try to get to where the food is. That's usually the challenge on the plane -- they're trying to find the food."

And her favorite travel destination?

"That's hard," the first lady admitted. "I enjoyed meeting the Pope, visiting the Vatican. It was really cool going to a state dinner at Buckingham Palace with the Queen of England."

The audience seemed awed at the prospect of meeting the queen, but Mrs. Obama quickly one-upped herself. "I also got to hang out in the beehive at a Beyonce concert," she recalled. "Oh, my stars!"

She was asked several times about how she's adjusted to her life as first lady - her favorite part of the job, what it's like to live in the White House - and she revealed one activity that she wasn't able to continue after the move to D.C.

"I'm an excellent cook," she said. "I haven't done it in a while because there are chefs -- people at the White House cook for us. But before I came here, yes, I was a good cook."

"The president, he can cook too, but he just didn't cook that much," she added. "He has this great chili that he would do, but I wound up making it more than he did."

The audience laughed. "Yeah, you guys know that drill, how that goes," she said.

Jokes aside, the first lady said she was visiting the St. Jude "to highlight the great work that's going on here."

"You guys know," she told the patients at the hospital, which specializes in treating children with catastrophic or terminal illnesses. "You can tell the world better than anyone just how important this institution is to so many kids and families."